Creating Your Internet Image

By Joanne C. Weaver

Are you hoping to woo millions to buy from your site? Or do you just want a simple online photo album for grandma to enjoy? Either way, your online image counts. You want your website to make a statement so that the people who land there will know they have arrived at the right place. So what can you do to ensure that your website delivers your intended message with style?

Consider Your Audience

The first thing to bear in mind when you create your website is your anticipated audience. Your site must be designed to be considerate of your viewers' time, interests and limitations—or you loose your audience. An information-based website had better be well organized so that viewers can find exactly what they want quickly. If your website aims to please the younger generation, you'd be wise to embellish with icons that most youth recognize. If you are targeting an older audience with diminished vision, using a larger font throughout your site is not just considerate but required to retain your readers.

Common sense? Yes, but you'd be surprised at the vast number of website writers that are completely oblivious to the needs and desires of their target audience. Don't be one of them. Ask at least one person who fits in your target audience to check out your site. The right perspective can unearth a wealth of information that you've overlooked.

State Your Purpose

Nothing is more frustrating when web surfing than landing on a webpage that doesn't have an obvious purpose. If I visit a given site and see wedding photos displayed everywhere, how can I tell if that website is showcasing wedding photography services or someone's personal album?

Each website's intent and purpose can easily be revealed with an appropriate website title or name, a short introduction paragraph on the homepage and clearly labeled buttons and links throughout your site. With these items in place, I should be able to tell instantly if I'm on a site featuring a wedding photographer or a site featuring a wedding memory.

Take a moment to view how your webpages look. Does your homepage briefly explain why your site exists? Is your site's purpose clear from every angle?

Make an Impression

Your homepage is your big chance to make a first impression. Draw attention to your main message by placing it at the top left or top center on your screen. Research has shown that our eyes tend to look to the top left first, scroll right, then down to repeat—like reading a book. Put your main message up high so that it won't be missed. Coupling an appropriate image with your message makes delivery many times more powerful.

Photos and graphics are big attention grabbers. Images should enhance your site's message without upstaging it. Occasionally, you'll see this happen in television commercials—if you find yourself acting out a commercial punch line but can't remember what product was being advertised, the images of that commercial have bulldozed the intended message.

It's an easy mistake to make online, too. A good method to learn how successful your homepage design is at delivering your message would be to test a few people. One at a time, have a few volunteers gaze at your homepage for 10 seconds, then shut off the monitor. Without preparation or prompting, ask what they remember. If they remember your main message, you might be on the path to success.

But don't fret if you have not succeeded yet. If you are willing to make a small investment, consider employing a web graphic artist to help you design your site, particularly if you are engaged in ecommerce. Graphic artists have a horde of images and tools at their fingertips and can quickly identify the best ones for the message you want to send with your website.

Design Your Look

A crisp, clean site with just enough options to make a reader want to explore—this is a common goal, even for a casual-theme website. How do some sites achieve this look so flawlessly?

Designers follow a few basic rules. Reader-friendly websites include spaces throughout their web pages to give their viewers' eyes a rest, like margins and paragraph breaks do on paper documents. The human eye naturally follows the flow of lines, but if your site is too packed with data, a viewer will eventually feel overwhelmed and give up. Navigating a too-busy web page is just as awkward as picking your way through a room with too many things scattered on the floor. You'll want to avoid a confusing, overstuffed page. But with the tremendous variety of graphics, backgrounds and colors on a web builder's palate, it's hard not to go a little crazy.

I have a friend who built a country recipe website complete with a vivid, red-and-white-checkered tablecloth background. This could have been overkill, but she softened the background effect using large chunks of washed-out tablecloth and solid color spaces to hold her text—the tablecloth took on a less demanding roll as a border. This was a wise choice; a reader's eyes can't tolerate text overtop a busy background for long. There must be enough contrast between the text color and the background color for the eye to pick out the letters effortlessly. Along the same lines—zippy graphics that flash, bounce and move are good attention-getters, but are also distracting and annoying. Use these on your site sparingly if at all.

Deliver with Fonts

A word on fonts—pick a few basic ones and keep your changes few. On the main page for this site—www.WebHostingReview.com—I believe we use only two fonts (not including fonts in our advertiser area). There is a little variety in font size, color and format, but the fonts our designers have chosen are quite basic, easy to read. This consistency gives our site a clean look that you cannot achieve when you mix ten different fonts and styles.

Novelty fonts are quite tempting, but don't give in. Unique, themed lettering is fun, but you should use novelty fonts infrequently since they are not reader friendly. In fact, your viewer's browsers often won't support unusual fonts, so your readers won't get to enjoy them anyway.

Write Words Right

Nothing shouts "amateur" like a website loaded with mismatched grammar, peculiar spelling and haphazard punctuation. Even if your site entertains only a small audience, all will lose respect for you quickly if the language on your site stumbles. If English isn't your area of expertise, bribe a friend to do this for you. Tighten up your writing and your readers will be far more willing to take you and your message seriously.

The same tidy advice goes for your programming prose. Troubleshoot all of your buttons and links on a regular basis; this is particularly important if you add to your site frequently. Pay attention to the error messages that most web host services provide for you—these error reports are valuable because they can tell you where visitors are tripping up and getting lost on your site. Get in and fix those broken links right away to keep your visitors sailing smoothly through.

Bring it Together

Learn from others' mistakes and successes online. As you surf the web, pay attention to your reactions on different sites—figure out why you are drawn to some sites and repelled by others. It may help to keep an idea journal to track sites that feature impressive design ideas you'd like to try. But the best teacher is experience. Get your site up and running and find out for yourself what works for you.

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